Social Networking And Social Bookmarking In Business

In order for your business to rake in customers, businesses need to be able to get to as many of them as they can first. Thus, many of these businesses have tried out various ways to reach prospective clients. This is pretty much true in the world of online marketing.

And to of the most common methods used by web marketers to gather customers is by using social networking and social bookmarking. However, many people, even those in the online circles, whether if these to are actually referring to the same thing. In fact, they are actually very different in their focus.

Social networking is basically building a network of friends over the web. On the other hand, social bookmarking is that gathering and sharing of resource links in a network. In simple terms, one is connecting simply for the sake of staying connected, while the other connects with the intention of getting something else. However, both methods are increasingly being offered together and integrated in many sites that this definition is now slowly becoming useless.

Expanding Your Small Business Through Social Media

In recent years, the social media phenomenon has risen greatly in its prominence in the lives of many netgoers. Starting out only as a handful of sites allowing people to share common interests, the phenomenon has grown such that even non-social media sites are now adding social networking components into their pages. And for many businesses, this one gives them a lot of opportunity to gather more customers.

But if you think that only the large companies are the only ones reaping the rewards of social media access, then you are in for a surprise. Even small businesses can actually partake in the phenomenon. In fact, this one is actually ideal for such businesses to grow at a faster rate. That is if you know how to use them properly.

Creating An Effective Business Website

Coming up with a great site for your business isn't just all about hiring a good website design company. In fact, that one is not even the first step at all. In order to make sure that your site will definitely be all the effort, you yourself should first know what are the hallmarks of an effective site are.


Of these, content is the first and foremost thing of importance. After all, this is what your customers would be looking for in the first place. In order to get their attention, you need to work your content such that it immediately says what it is supposed to say. Remember that
a lot of web surfers have no patience for sites that don't immediately give out what they want. Thus, you need to tell your viewers right on the home page what they can expect.


And with regards to this, you also need to be a bit technical and take the speed of your site into consideration. Keep in mind here that any site that takes more than ten seconds to load at normal speeds would certainly be a bad idea. Thus, you might have to ditch those fancy
animations and effects in favor a simpler website design, which will greatly improve your loading speed.


But of course, that one doesn't mean that you have to go for bland website layouts all the time. In fact, this one is a common mistake made by many business putting up a website for the first time. Remember that your goal here is to come up with something that would attract your
customers. Thus, you need to carefully plan your site such that it will be able to get people turning. Also, be sure to tie this o0ne up with the other factors mentioned in order to come up with one solid design.


Another thing that you might want to take note of is interaction with your customers. This one has, in fact, become even more important nowadays with the advent of social media. Make sure that your site is as interactive as possible in order to better relay your message to your
customers. Making sure that they can easily access your site from any of the countless social media sites available is one good way of doing this. Also, in order to make your site even more user friendly, you yourself need to interact with your costumers more though it. This way,
you will ensure that you get all the traffic that you want here.

Lastly, keep in mind that coming up with a great site is not a one shot deal. Remember that you will have a lot of competitors out there, so you need to more innovative and one step ahead of others with regards to this one.

Strategies and Techniques on how to promote your small business' website

After creating your website, the next thing you do is to promote it. How are you going to promote it online in order to gain more attractions and customers? You don't need an expensive web

You don't need to distribute flyers all over the streets or rent a huge billboard with your URL written on the boards. Here are some basics, and try to research and discover for some more.


Make your URL simple. Creating an identity is the best thing you can attract your customers - on line and off line. Select a unique and concise URL name for your site to be able to recognize easily.


Submit your sites to Directories Search Engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google. You can use the free service directories to submit your site. For faster and maximum exposure, avail the paid services.


Optimizing your website. Create titles, meta tags, and selecting the right keywords that best describes your website. Make sure that your keywords and descriptions are appropriate to each pages of your websites. You can also consult or hire some Search Engine Optimization experts for great results like SEO Solutions that will provide you quality services on different services like Key Phrase Research, , Content Keyword Optimizing and Targeting, and, Optimizing Meta Tags


Target Market/Audience and to Gain Website Traffic: As long as you have complete information written on your site, you can easily gain attractions to your customers. Make sure your information are concise and relevant. Having a good content pages on your website will help you to gain more traffic through search engines.


Promotions/Free Advertisements: Create an articles, bulletins/newsletters or new announcements on your site so that customers will be aware on your new product or services. You can also make some product reviews or conduct a survey on your products.


Affiliations: Join some interactive organizations like in forums or sites relevant to your products/services. You cannot say they are your direct competitors but in some ways you can also ask help to promote your products and as well gain “partnership,” remember that you just started a website and you need an exposure.


Trading and Buying Ad Banners. There are a lot of online advertisements available on the internet. If you have a budget, you can purchase some advertising campaigns to other sites or better use banner exchange services and trade with them.


A successful small business website not only depends on your marketing strategies but on how you are going to handle it's value and quality. Apply those techniques, learn and discover more in order for you to achieve your goal.